User blog:Gojirob/Goodbye, My Princess...
This is the one and only fic I ever wrote featuring her character, so enjoy. It's an xover with Star Trek, featuring two supporting characters from TNG and DS9, as well as our classic heroes. Please enjoy, and think of Carrie and Debbie only in good ways. Story Notes: Occurs sometime after the DS9 episode 'Q-Less'. See endnotes for more continuity. Scoundrels by Rob Morris Okona pressed his luck. "I was the one who told that Ferengi partner of yours where to find you on Risa." Vash didn't answer. Didn't even tell him to shut up. So he tried again. "So, I'm talking to Kirk, Archer and Pike, and each bet me their Enterprise that I couldn't get you in the sack before the end of this month." Okona had known Vash long before either of them met Picard. She had tried to steal his passenger's heirlooms and he had been smuggling for her archrival. All in all, a friendly, if abusive relationship, with a lot of screaming about who did what wrong to who. "So when we do it, I'm going to film the whole thing and send it to FedNews. I'll try for a lot of buttshots, okay?" She finally responded, albeit weakly. "Why are you even trying, when you know what kind of mood I'm in?" Okona kept his eyes on sensors, his mind on her. "Because you've been in this mood since Q dumped you at DS9. What did Q do?" Vash looked up. "What do you mean, what did I do?" Okona got confused. "No! What did---Q---do?" She nodded. "Oh. Well, it wasn't any one thing. It was just a lot of near misses. A volcano edge here, a laser bolt there---giant flesh eating plants--everywhere. He greatly enjoyed getting me naked, somehow." Okona let that one go. Some targets were just too big. "I thought you enjoyed near misses. Strike that--you love and adore near misses. As for that last part, you used to love to ask people, 'What are you staring at?'." Her eyes, which usually darted about finding new treasures, really seemed lost. "He did it too often. A near-miss became an almost-died. The bold and the naked became the vulnerable and the muchly laughed-at. I was a toy, Okona. A toy that intrigued him, till it didn't anymore." Okona gave forth with tenderness and understanding. "Well, DUH!!!! He's Q, for God's sake! Mess with your brain, play dice with your eyes, put an Aldebaran serpent in front of you! God, I hate three-headed reptiles. Ya know, there was this one critter in this old Japanese vid....." Vash cut him off. "Okona, I don't need a long story. I need me back. I need me back, badly. Because otherwise, they may as well just put me in with one of my finds as a relic of past glory. I still haven't forgiven Sisko for that pass he made at me, either!" Okona tried to remember that, and couldn't. "Sisko didn't make a pass at you." Vash nodded. "That's what I haven't forgiven." "Uh---huh. Well, we're here." Vash saw what looked like a micro-wormhole fissure. "You're not planning to fly into that, are you?" Okona smiled an obnoxious Q-esque smile. "I sure am." Vash would not give him the satisfaction of screaming, as they flew in. She did hold her breath, though. "We--we flew through it?" Okona shook his head. "Noper. Around it. It was a cluster wormhole. Several small, avoid-if you're smart, fissure wormholes that hide---" He pointed at an asteroid, and a ship that lay on it nearby. "---ta da! A large, stable, completely passable wormhole. I'm meeting a friend for dinner. You'll like him. Fellow smuggler. Great sense of humor. Get your mind off of everything." The other ship was fair-sized, and circle shaped except for the very front, which curved out in two horned sections. "Hey, I like him already. That hunk of junk is even more of a museum piece than your ship. Although--where is it from? I've never seen anything remotely like it." Okona shrugged. "He is a smuggler in his corners, nooks and crannies, and I do in mine. We don't compete, so we talk. Besides, does it make sense for aftermarket dealers to trade evidence?" Vash was a bit thrown that she'd forgotten so fundamental a rule. In a moment, the linking up was done. The other pilot came through, dark-haired and a bit weatherworn, though handsome to Vash's eyes. Apparently, the somewhat regal-looking woman with him thought the same. While there was no physical resemblance, this lady had something of Jean-Luc about her. She was a leader. Her hair-style suggested that she had always had someone else on hand to do it for her. She was rich. Her easy handling of Vash's scoping out of her man said the rest. She was his wife. "Hey, Okona! Honey, this guy once gutted his entire ship to help me refit, when we were on the run after Y4. Took me years to pay him back." The woman nodded. "Then not only do I and my husband owe you, Mister Okona, but so do all my people. You have my thanks." Okona was a bit thrown that his free-spirited hiding-place mate had found so serious a life companion. "Well, you know--H--he was good for every credit. Glad to be of help." He tried to change the subject. "You know, pal, I stopped here a few times during The Cardie War---about eight years back--you were just nowhere to be found." The other pilot laughed. "I was on ice, Okona. Literally. Some reward-seekers had collected on a debt I owed an old fiend of mine." Vash decided to test her counterpart. "Guess that didn't sit too well with you, huh?" The woman folded her arms. "Have we been introduced?" Vash almost felt a physical shove. The regal lady was good. Okona gulped. "Oh, geez...where are my manners? This is Vash, an old friend of mine. A mutual friend asked me to pick her up from a space station. A starship captain named Picard." The other pilot blinked twice. "Picard Of The Stargazer?" Okona and Vash looked at each other, and spoke as one. "The man gets around." The regal lady now answered Vash's question. "Well---Vash, it didn't sit very well with me at all. So I did something about his captivity." Vash tried to regain her ground. "Lemme guess. You issued a strongly worded letter of protest?" "No. I strangled the SOB while my brother cut his mercenaries to pieces." Vash felt totally outclassed, and she couldn't stand that feeling. "Wow. Daddy must be proud." The other pilot put a restraining hand on his wife. "Vash? Mentioning their Dad is a really, really bad idea. I mean, really bad." Okona glared. Vash gulped. "Uhhh...I'm sorry?" The regal woman calmed down. "Apology accepted." And when the meal of various dishes was done with, the other couple took their leave of Vash and Okona. Vash shook hands with the regal woman. "Look. I had the wind knocked out of me recently, by someone who knew how to do it. That really put me off my mark. I'm sorry for the way I acted, and for some of the phrasing I used. I have an attitude. I usually don't try and clobber people with it. Truce?" "Truce." "Okona? Next time---we're gonna bring her brother and the kids. These quiet little dinners? Paradise. Being married to The President means kissing a lot of diplomatic butt." Okona mock-slugged him. "Ahhh...you know I love ya, ya big galoot! And tell Furball not to be a stranger, either." "Sure will. I still can't believe you speak his language." Okona always meant to mention the translator chip, and ask why his pal didn't have one. He always let the moment pass, though. "Errrr...yeah." Almost out the door, the regal woman turned back to them. "Oh, Vash? One more thing?" Vash smiled, feeling calmer. "Yes?" The woman opened her hand, exposing her palm. Flying out from Vash's kit bag came a metal cylinder, which the woman caught and reattached to her belt. "That was a gift from my brother. Don't try and steal it again." Vash felt her pride of place roar up. "Or you'll what?" The cylinder ignited into a long, coherent beam, and the woman leaped into Vash's face, all in one motion. The seat Vash had been using split neatly in two. For a split-second, Vash even had trouble breathing. Like lightning, her rival rejoined her husband. "Or next time, I'll show you what my father was like." With her slightly intimidated hubby in tow, the woman finally left. Vash looked angry. "Okona--can they usually see in here, as they pull out?" "Sure. I usually wave goodbye before going to warp. Why?" Vash began to disrobe. "I am going to moon that little witch, and give her man an eyeful that he won't ever forget. And then you and I are going to forget Q, Jean-Luc, and the whole damned Alpha Quadrant." Okona smiled. She had promised casual, wild sex. She had risked instant death. She was getting naked to offend someone who was stuck-up. She had stolen someone else's property. "Good to have you back, Vash." -------------------------------------------------- FAR, FAR AWAY...... "Hey, guys! Good to have you home. The kids are......" The woman bypassed her twin brother, and kept yelling at her husband. "You--are--a--PIG!" "Honey, C'mon---I didn't stare at her for all that long!" The bedroom door slammed, and the arguing continued. "There's nothing like a lively marriage-- and those two have got a lively marriage." Wisely, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker waited a few weeks before asking exactly what happened. Chapter End Notes: Originally written as part of the 'Starting Over' AU. In terms of SW continuity, I would say this occurs within 10 years after ROTJ, and after Heir To The Empire, Dark Empire and other relatively early EU novel series. Category:Blog posts